


then spoke the thunder

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, The Blue Spirit - Freeform, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, as if either of those things are developments, bc of course, headcanons abound, i promise the gaang will get here eventually, pirate!Zuko, pirates will make an appearance, so much ts elliot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: zuko is born in the winter, the full moon high above and saltwater in his blood. zuko is born in the winter, an omen from the sea.(alternatively; zuko, lightning, and the drowned phoenician sailor)
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Comments: 10
Kudos: 138





	then spoke the thunder

**Author's Note:**

> zuko and lightning are complicated. it's easier to start with zuko and thunder.

He is born in the dark, alive.

They don't know the second thing for a while. But eventually, they catch on. The moon is full and the Winter is cold and the Sages call him an omen.

His mother is tired and his mother is alone and his mother names him Zuko.

_to carthage then i came_

_burning burning burning burning_

_-_

Zuko's family is made of thunder. They aren't as loud, but they echo, and he only ever gets a warning after he's hurt. He doesn't learn that last thing for a while. It is another in his long, long list of mistakes.

Maybe that is why he was left out and cold and lucky to be born. Because he never got in on the joke.

-

He sits in his room on Ember Island and for the first time, Zuko watches a storm.

Rain smothers the world and drowns the moon. Two days later Azula will Firebend before him. He is watching their fates be set; Not in stone, but in sky.

His father's yell echoes down the hallway, and lightning splits the clouds. Zuko is young and he has spent too much time with his Uncle and he calls it an omen.

Azula stands on the porch, steps from the rain, hands open to try and catch thunder.

-

He starts training with the dao when he's seven and still not a firebender because Azulon says that not being a bender doesn't get him out of being a fighter.

Piandao is two swords and no fire and metal of the unbreakable kind.

He tries with one sword but-

"Stop trying to block me with your left hand, Zuko! You're going to get your arm cut off."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. How about we try something different?"-

He fits better with two.

(He has to wear two holes in his hands but he makes them fit.)

Azula says the two swords mean he's compensating. He doesn't know what that word means and he doesn't know how she does. It sounds condescending enough, so he figures that it's nothing good.

Maybe it's something to do with fire‒ the Azula, not the word. Maybe understanding things better and being smarter is just a thing that Firebenders can do.

When Zuko first thinks that, he slaps himself on the wrist. Stupid. He _is_ a Firebender, he is. He's just a late bloomer.

He is. He is.

-

On a rare trip home from the front lines, Lu Ten takes him to a play.

Lu Ten says he's seen the _Agni and the Cave_ myth a hundred times, and that this one isn't any different. Zuko likes it, but Zuko likes most things.

They go to lunch together afterwards. Lu Ten talks about The War, which deserves capital letters, as all important things do, and about his funniest squad member, and about some running joke between the army's infinite Kuzons that no one else is permitted to know.

Zuko talks about his sword training and how he wants a pet but can't have one because of Azula. Lu Ten doesn't ask him to elaborate on Azula anecdotes, not anymore. He just presses his lips together a little, like he's tasting something rotten, and lets Zuko move the conversation forward.

It's easier to pretend something isn't there if you're allowed to close your eyes, Zuko has learned. Zuko was already doing it‒ Lu Ten just joined him. They don't need to look, and they don't need to talk about it, and everything is going to be fine.

_And we shall play a game of chess,_

_Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door._

-

He writes a letter to Uncle Iroh. It's about his training, mostly, and how the turtleducks are doing, but it says a little bit on the flowers the family (Except Father, never Father) had planted on Uncle's last trip home. They're growing well. Zuko calls them buttercups, but he's not entirely sure.

Azula helps him with the spelling. He's wrong. They're yellow carnations.

That feels more different than it should, for some reason.

He almost writes what he's really thinking about (His father's voice, echoing through the garden as Azula made fire and Zuko made mistakes. "Azula was born lucky, you were lucky to be born") but he's not sure he wants Uncle reading it. He's not sure he wants Azula reading it either.

_"that corpse you planted last year in your garden,_

_has it begun to sprout? will it bloom this year?"_

_-_

Finally (Finally finally finally) Zuko Firebends. It barely sparks, especially compared to what Azula can do, but he was training with Piandao and it flickered across his blades and he's a Firebender. He is, he is, he is.

Mother is happy. Father nods in vague, grudging approval, and Azula sneers and says "at least you can do _one_ thing right" but Zuko doesn't care because he's a Firebender and maybe he can even be a good one. And maybe if he's good at Firebending his dad will stop looking at him like that.

His mom takes him to see Love Amongst the Dragons.

He's not that embarrassed for liking it because his mom likes it too. His favourite character is the Dragon Empress. But something about the villain, the Dark Water Spirit, makes his heart thump against his chest. A slow cloying dread, like lava turning to rock on the inside of his ribs. As soon as they leave the theatre, Zuko shakes himself and brushes the feeling away. But his goosebumps don't disappear all night.

The next time they go to Ember Island, they see the same play by a different theatre troop. The Dark Water spirit dies in this one, instead of just being defeated. Somehow, this doesn't feel any better.

Zuko doesn't want to watch the play again. But he can't help but come back with his mother each time she asks, staring into the holes of the blue mask, feeling building anxiety and fascination but unable to put words to why.

_Here, said she,_

_is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor_

-

His lessons with Piandao are supposed to stop, after that, but then Piandao meets with his father, and he and Azula eavesdrop from behind the curtains while Grandfather says ("I've been told the boy is excelling in his training. Piandao has turned out valuable assassins before.") that Zuko should be allowed to continue his training and then he is.

He does Firebending training every day and meets with Piandao twice a week. He wishes it was the other way around. He doesn't embarrass himself in front of Piandao. He's good with the dao. But with Firebending he's-

"You're weak," Says Father, voice calm even as his nails dig into Zuko's arm. "If only you were more like your sister."

Streams of magma pour out of his eyes, his throat and nose filling up like he's drowning in shame.

"Stop crying," Ozai barks. His eyes are burning too, but it's dry fire, with power behind it instead of tears. Zuko makes a raw, scared noise in the back of his throat and he wishes he could stop it but he can't because Father is scary when he's mad. "Or I'll give you something to cry about!"

Zuko tries and he tries and he's digging his feet into the grass and he's thinking about the turtleducks right behind him and he doesn't want to keep crying but Father is standing right there and Zuko doesn't want to get hurt and he just wants Father to go away because he's scary when he's mad.

He sobs and sniffles and Father's hand gets hotter and hotter and-

"Zuko? Have you been crying? What happened?"

"Just- Just Azula. I'm fine."

_"what is that noise?"_

_the wind under the door._

_"what is that noise now? what is the wind doing?"_

_nothing again nothing._

_-_

Azula burns the flowers when she stomps on them. Zuko's heart gets dislocated and starts beating into his ribs.

He is young and his eyes are closed and he should have known it was an omen.

-

Lu Ten is dead. The world is wrong and Lu Ten is dead.

Uncle Iroh is coming home and Lu Ten is dead.

Azula is

and mom is 

and Uncle is 

and Lu Ten is dead.

Father wants to rule the world (Father wants to burn it down).

"Dad's going to kill you. Really, _he is_."

He tugs his blankets to his neck and digs his nails into them like he's going to rip through the blankets and then tear into his chest. He could pull out his heart and ask why it's not working right. 

_Azula always lies_.

He falls asleep with his throat full of mud.

 _Azula always lies_.

Mom's hand is on his face and her voice is in his ear and she swipes a finger under his eye like she's preemptively wiping away the tears.

"Never forget who you are."

And she's gone.

He falls back asleep, the mark of her hand on his face. The omen curls up under his eye and waits till it is needed again.

His mother is gone and Azulon is dead and his father will burn down the world.

_the shouting and the crying_

_prison and palace and reverberation_

_of thunder_

-

Sword training stops. Sword training is for little kids who can't do anything else right and Zuko can't keep affording to be that.

He tries to put the swords away but they prickle beneath his skin. He manages a week before he gets desperate to be good again.

The palace library has books on sword fighting, so he manages, but it's not the same as having a teacher.

He doesn't sleep much anymore.

-

Before the world got all twisted up, Uncle Iroh gave him a knife.

After, Uncle Iroh gave him the script for Love Amongst Dragons. Zuko choked out a thank you and ran for his room. He hid under the covers and held the book to his chest and he cried until his stomach ached and his throat was turned to rock.

-

Zuko figures, sometime between the first burn and the last, that he was not born to cry, not bred for it. Royal blood probably doesn't need tears. 

-

(Salt makes fire burn gold, he learns.

He wishes that he hadn't.)

-

His mother placed a bandage on his hand and told him that scars are proof of life.

Uncle wipes the red away from Zuko's split lip and tells him that blood is pride.

-

Zuko doesn't know much but he does like to believe.

He doesn't think the world is very nice but he wants to see it change, and he likes to believe that it can.

-

There is a war room.

He feels powerful, sitting among powerful men. He doesn't know if he's ever felt powerful before.

The 41st division is fresh meat and Lu Ten is dead. Zuko stands and tries to make the councilmen remember that they are here because they want to change the world, too.

Father is angry and Zuko tries not to cry because things only ever get worse when he cries. He'll be fine. He can fight. He can fight. He can.

_april is the cruelest month_

-

He tries not to cry when he sees Father standing across from him but Zuko can never do anything right.

He prays to Agni and kneels at the feet of his father and hopes one of them can hear. Thunder crashes in the Fire Lord's voice and Zuko knows he is seeing a storm. He doesn't want to die here.

He doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to fight and he wishes he could just stop crying.

The god of the sky grabs him the hair and an omen cracks the world in half.

_o lord thou pluckest me out  
_ _o lord thou pluckest  
_ _burning_

-

**Author's Note:**

> should i be working on my many, many WIP? yes, absolutely. am i? no. (Sorry.)
> 
> (title and quotes are from ts elliots the wasteland, chapter title is from his poem preludes)
> 
> comment to water my crops and pet my cats


End file.
